Inbound vs. outbound telephone rates vary substantially from one market to another around the world. Indeed, some markets have extremely high outbound telephone rates in comparison to inbound rates due to the local communication companies having a monopoly in that market. As an example, outbound calls from India to the USA can cost four times as much as inbound calls from the USA to India. For several years, so-called "callback" schemes have been offered as a means to bypass the high outbound telephone rates of the various monopoly telecommunication companies around the world. Callback services have the potential of saving up to 50% or more on international long distance calls. However, known callback services have been difficult for a customer to use. This is so because the customer has had to dial extra digits, requiring more time and introducing additional opportunities for error. Because of this, callback services have met with only limited market success and even then only when outbound telephone rates from the monopoly telecommunication companies are so excessive as to justify the extra effort by the customer to use the callback service.
Known callback services work by assigning each customer a unique phone number that terminates to an international callback platform. The international callback platform is a facility located in a country (for example, in the United States) inbound to the customer's country that has substantial competition for outbound telephone rates and therefore has much lower long distance rates (often as much as 80% lower than in some locales) than the outbound rates in that country. To use the service, the customer calls his unique international phone number and then hangs up. This prompts the international callback platform to make an inbound call to the user's telephone. The user then answers the phone and gets a new (second) dial tone from the international callback platform. Using the second dial tone, the customer dials the phone number of the destination party that he wishes to reach. The international callback platform uses the new number to call the desired number and then bridges the two calls together so that the user can talk to the desired party. Effectively, an outbound call from the customer's country is replaced by two calls: an inbound call to the customer and an outbound call from a country with low outbound rates to the destination party.
To speed things up and to make the use of international callback easier, it has been known to utilize speed dialing codes for the most commonly called TO international phone numbers for a customer. Under this scheme, the customer can create short speed dialing codes for his most commonly called international phone numbers. First, the customer would call the international callback platform and create a two digit speed dialing code assigned to a desired phone number. For example, the customer might assign the code "17" to his or her parents' phone number in a different country. Once a callback session has been initiated (i.e. once the international callback platform has dialed up the customer's telephone and the customer has answered), the customer can then enter the short speed dial code to direct the international callback platform to call the assigned telephone number. The entry of the short speed dialing code directs the international callback platform to call the particular number previously created. This technique can reduce the number of digits that the customer must enter during the second stage of dialing. However, it still requires that the customer make a conscious choice to call the international callback platform and dial twice (once to call the international callback platform and once to call the number). Moreover, it requires the customer to remember the speed dialing codes and it is difficult to create, change, and delete the speed dialing codes in the international callback platform.
In another effort to improve the ease of initiating or using a callback scheme, a callback provider installs small local gateway platforms in various large cities that it serves along with a larger international callback platform in the low-cost long distance market (i.e., the U.S.). The customer is then assigned a unique local telephone number that reaches the local gateway platform. To initiate a callback, the customer calls the local telephone number and hapgs up. The local gateway platform then sends a data message via a data network to the international callback platform which then calls the customer's telephone number. The customer then answers the telephone and receives a second dial tone to allow him to dial his desired party. This method reduces the number of digits that the customer must dial in the first dialing stage because he only has to dial a local number, rather than calling an international number to initiate the callback session. However, the user must still dial all of the digits in the international telephone number he desires to call. This represents only a marginal improvement over the prior techniques.
What is needed then is a method and apparatus that allows the customer to enjoy the cost-savings and benefits of a callback service without the difficult and time-consuming effort needed to initiate a callback session. It is to the provision of such a method and apparatus that the present invention is primarily directed.